This course provides an overview of CAP: the benefits for using it; the technology behind it; examples of tools for issuing CAP alerts; and examples of CAP-based alert hubs.
Topic outline
Introduction
What happens when your hazardous weather alerts go out to the public? How widely are they distributed to the people in the impact zones? What can your organization do to make your alerts easily accessible to the public, the media, online venues, and alerting systems?
The use of the Common Alerting Protocol (CAP) can improve how your organization coordinates and disseminates alerts. The WMO Public Weather Services Delivery (PWSD) programme is supporting the effort to implement the Common Alerting Protocol for all WMO members, including making this course available to interested parties. The CAP standard is maintained by the Organization for the Advancement of Structured Information Standards (OASIS) and was adopted by the International Telecommunication Union as X.1303. Many disaster response agencies, fire and police departments, and National Meteorological and Hydrological Services around the world use CAP in communicating and coordinating their alerts.
This course provides an overview of CAP, reasons for implementing it, a look at the technology behind it, and examples of how it is being used.
How to Take This Course
This 1.5-2 hour, self-directed course is offered through the WMO Education and Training (ETR) programme's course site. All resources, assignments, and assessments are available on this site. Review the following topics to learn how to best participate and successfully complete this course.
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Read the Course Guide for information on how to complete this course:
Do you have questions about the course? Having problems using or accessing lessons or activities? Use this forum to post your questions or concerns. A member of the WMO ETR Office will get back to you with a response.
The Announcement forum is used by the course organizers to post information on updates to the course and to share activities related to CAP implementation. As an enrolled participant in the course, you will receive email notifications for new postings.
When an emergency is in the forecast...
...alerts need to go out to the public as quickly and as efficiently as possible. The better people are informed about a hazard threat or emergency, the more lives can be saved and resources preserved. And the more targeted the alerts are, the more people in harms way are confident the message is intended precisely for them. CAP is designed to precisely identify the alerting area and to communicate quickly and easily through any communications media, using a format that is universally readable.
CAP 101: An Overview of the Common Alerting Protocol
The following six lessons step through parts of a presentation given by Eliot Christian at a 2018 workshop held at
Centro Regional de Formación Argentina. Eliot highlights the key reasons for implementing CAP, describes how it works, and showcases examples of how it is being used. Within each lesson, you will watch segments of Eliot's recorded presentation, answer questions, and be directed to visit and explore CAP related resources. Before beginning the lessons, you may want to download the following two files. - CAP 101: Common Alerting Protocol Presentation Notes File 10.2MB documento PDF
This is a PDF file containing presentation notes for the videos used in the following CAP 101 lessons. Having a printed copy is helpful for taking notes.
- CAP 101: Common Alerting Protocol Presentation Slides File 14.9MB documento PDF
This is a PDF file of the presentation used in the CAP 101 lesson videos. It includes active links to many of the resources cited in the presentation.
CAP 101 Lessons:
Completing each lesson and the summary is required for completing the course. Lessons will be marked complete as you answer all questions and finish all activities. It is recommended that you take the lessons in sequence.
Final activity: Provide your opinion on the effectiveness of this course for learning about CAP. Your information will be anonymous.
- Your "Enrollment Key" for the "Guidelines for Implementing CAP Alerts" and the "Issuing CAP Alerts" courses is here: PageThis course is a prerequisite for taking the other two courses in this collection: Guidelines for Implementing CAP Alerts and the Issuing CAP Alerts. By completing this course and the activities listed, you will be able to display this page, which contains your "Enrollment Key". You can find links to these courses and other CAP resources at the CAP Resources Portal.